


like dust, we settle

by thisisthefamilybusiness



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Dead Money DLC, F/F, Family, Family Issues, Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sierra Madre (Fallout), and her loving concerned ghoul wife and their children, child endangerment, i guess?, to make this more appealing it's actually all about a sad butch ex-ranger lesbian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-20
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2019-05-09 09:26:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14713466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisisthefamilybusiness/pseuds/thisisthefamilybusiness
Summary: Novak comes home from the Sierra Madre a different woman.Over twenty years of service with the Rangers had never broken her—two years fighting the Legion hadn’t bothered her, the battle for the Dam hadn’t gotten to her. The Zion war and the Malpais Legate hadn’t troubled her. The Big Empty and floating brains in jars hadn’t cracked her. She’d always come home to Ida with the same softness in her expression, covered in desert dust and complaining about sunburn, wanting to know when dinner would be ready.But the Madre—it changed Novak.





	like dust, we settle

Novak comes home from the Sierra Madre a different woman.

Over twenty years of service with the Rangers had never broken her—two years fighting the Legion hadn’t bothered her, the battle for the Dam hadn’t gotten to her. The Zion war and the Malpais Legate hadn’t troubled her. The Big Empty and floating brains in jars hadn’t cracked her. She’d always come home to Ida with the same softness in her expression, covered in desert dust and complaining about sunburn, wanting to know when dinner would be ready. 

But the Madre—it changed Novak. Not drastically, but Ida isn’t stupid. She didn’t survive for seventy-seven years for nothing. Novak’s smile is weak now, her entire body tired, and there’s a thin scar tracing the circumference of her neck that she won’t let Ida look at. At night, when Novak thinks everyone has fallen asleep, she sits on their floor and cries in long, shaking sobs that Ida wishes she knew how to soothe.

There are words for it— _ shell-shock _ was what Ida first heard it as, when she’d been tending bar in Arroyo. Sometimes those brave New Californian boys and girls shipped out to go fight the brave fight, and even if their bodies came back home, their minds never quite did.  _ Post-traumatic stress _ , Ida later heard it called, by a Follower of the Apocalypse who’d been trying to explain that the mini-nuke explosions that destroyed her little hometown might have left scars that went beyond Ida’s newly ghoulified body.

Ida tries to remember what the Follower had said, but it’s been decades. She wants to help, but this wound isn’t something she can make a poultice for. Whatever happened in the Madre, Ida just has to trust Novak will tell her in time.

It doesn’t make it any easier for Ida to have to sit idly by while her wife suffers. She scrubs a hand over Novak’s back when Novak wakes from her nightmares, and offers her calming teas when Novak’s hands shake, but there’s nothing more she can do.

* * *

Novak’s running herself ragged, but Ida’s quiet suggestions to take a break are constantly shot down with a quiet laugh. “Gotta keep myself busy,” Novak always says, but there are dark purple bags under her eyes and Ida knows she’s barely sleeping four hours a night.

Ida tries to pretend that all is normal. She wakes with the sun, dresses for the day. Novak’s still in bed this morning, lazily sprawled out as she reads another issue of  _ Guns and Bullets _ , when Ida heads into the kitchen to start breakfast.

Jack is sitting at their kitchen table, fiddling with the radio. It’s been broken for a week, but the boy is determined to get it working again, his little scarred fingers poking around its wires. Ida presses a kiss to the top of his head with a smile. Jack’s been with them the longest, since he stumbled upon their homestead when he’d been freshly turned to a ghoul—twenty years, now, but Ida teases him and tells him he’s always going to be her littlest son, even if he’s actually thirty.  

Ida pulls peppers and eggs from the icebox with a soft sigh. At least Novak wasn’t out in the pastures already, pushing herself to the edge physically like she’d done the past few days. She lit the stove and set her biggest skillet on it.

Jack mumbles something to himself, and there’s a faint crackle of electricity before the radio clicks on, playing static at full volume. Ida’s turning around to tell him to keep it quiet when the gunshot rings out.

Novak’s got her Sequoia in her hand, expression cold and vacant in a way Ida’s never seen it before. She doesn’t lower the gun, just keeps it pointed steady at the broken remains of the radio. Jack stumbles backwards, knocking over the chair he’d been sitting in, and into Ida’s arms where he shakes in fear.

“Novak!” Ida shouts without thinking.

“It coulda killed all of you,” Novak grunts, and her fingers go to her neck, to that scar, as if she’s checking for something. When her fingers touch only her skin, Novak’s expression snaps, and immediately she goes pale with horror. “Oh, shit,” she mumbles and hurriedly clicks the safety on her Sequoia on before she drops it to the table. “Ida, I’m so sorry, Jack, I don’t know what got into me—”

Jack burrows closer into Ida’s shoulder as Novak steps closer. “You could’ve killed him,” Ida hisses, wrapping her arms tighter around her son. “What happened, Novak?”

Novak scrubs her palm down her face, but Ida can see the tears her wife is trying to hide from her. “I’m so sorry.” And then Novak leaves, the door slamming behind her.

Ida swallows around a lump in her throat. “You okay,  _ mijo _ ?” she asks as Jack takes a step back.

The boy nods and fixes on a resolute expression. “I’ll be okay.” Ida looks him over once with a critical eye, but he’s not hurt and he’s not shaking anymore. “I promise.” Jack cracks a small smile.

“I’ve got to go find Novak.” Ida grabs the Sequoia from the table and Novak’s gun holster off its hanger in the hall. With a tremble in her hands, Ida slips the holster on over her shoulders, tightening the straps a little before she slides the Sequoia in place.

Norma is leaning against the wall in the hallway, little Graciela on her hip and Lupe behind her. “What happened, Mama?” she asks quietly.

Ida runs her hands through the thin remnants of her hair and steels herself. “Novak shot the radio.” It’ll be okay. She’ll find Novak in the fields, in the pasture, and everything will be okay again. A sob breaks in her chest and she can feel the tears welling up.

“Go, Mama. I’ll take care of things around here,” Norma urges, and Ida nods. Norma’s always been a good girl, and she’s grown up in an exceptional woman.

Ida leaves the house without any further hesitation.

* * *

Novak’s sprawled out on her back in the dirt of the empty pasture, and for a long horrible minute Ida’s so certain that her very worst fears have come true, and she races over to Novak with her heart thudding.

But Novak smiles dopily up at Ida when she kneels at her side, and grasps at Ida’s blouse to pull her down for a kiss. That’s when Ida notices the empty Med-X syringe by Novak’s arm, and Ida lets out a sob she didn’t know she was holding back. “Oh, Novak,” Ida whispers, tugging Novak into her lap and pressing Novak’s head to her chest. “Oh,  _ mi cariño _ , what happened?”

“He made us, uh, wear these bomb collars,” Novak says. Her speech is slurred with the painkillers. “Set to ‘splode if we did somethin’ wrong, but the static—y’see, Ida, the radio static messed ‘em up, so if ya got too close to one of ‘em, then bang! You’re dead.” Novak giggles.

“But you’re okay now, right, Novak?” Ida asks, trying to keep her tone nice and calm.

“No. Every mornin’ I wake up, Ida, and I’m in that fuckin’ casino again. I space out and I’m back there again, and fuckin’ Elijah is tauntin’ me and I’m lost in that fuckin’ fog and all I can fuckin’ think about is how I’m gonna die there and I’m never gonna see you and the kids ever again, because I’m too fuckin’ stupid to just ignore weird shit.” Novak nestles her face into the crook of Ida’s neck.

“But you’re not there,  _ cariño,  _ you’re here, at home, with me,” Ida murmurs. She strokes her hand through Novak’s short gray hair.

“My mind don’t always know that, though.” And Novak sounds so sad, so broken that it kills Ida inside.

“Novak, I understand you don’t want to talk to me, but you have to talk to someone. I miss you.” She feels so damn helpless. What can she possibly do for this kind of hurt? Novak has always been so strong, always a little spark of mischief in her eyes before. “Please. Please, Novak.”

Novak shrugs lazily. “Could talk to Arcade, I guess. Maybe one of the Followers’ll know somethin’.”

“Please.” Ida hugs Novak as close as she can manage. “I love you, Novak. And I’ll be here for you any time, alright?”  


Novak just nods and giggles again. 

**Author's Note:**

> me: oh geez maybe I won't post this, it's super niche  
> dark me: post it anyway 
> 
>  
> 
> [my tumblr](http://officialclaricestarling.tumblr.com)


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